VideoAmigo vs. VidStatsX

November, 2018

Don't Despair That VidStatsX Closed. VideoAmigo* Has You Covered.

*VideoAmigo has all the lists, and more - without ads.

When frenemy and fellow video stats portal VidStatsX closed down in October 2018, we didn't revel in their closure. They did some great things that helped YouTubers over the years, including Touchstorm when we started our first YouTube channel years ago (we're the folks behind the Howdini channel and Howdini Hacks).

VidStatsX pioneered user-friendlier YouTube stats back in 2009. Today, there are even more options for interpreting your YouTube analytics and drawing impactful “how to” insights, including what we deliver in our robust analytics platform:VideoAmigo.

Let’s take a look at the state-of-the-art and how we got here. Plus, we’ll show you what’s available to replace what you’re missing from VidStatsX.

TL;DR

Build A Better Stats-Trap.

Our mission was to create the definitive YouTube “Analytics Revisited” platform. We wanted to take the basic idea of the simple, but oh-so-helpful ranking lists from VidStatsX and their competitor Social Blade, but add serious channel management tools and analysis that would show creators how to build a bigger, better channel on YouTube. (See what you can do with our free Creator Tools Suitehere.)

VidStatsX dubbed their offering “Data crunching fun for video stat geeks.” (And it was fun.) Our take is slightly different. VideoAmigo uses the tagline “Rise Above Your Rivals.” Not because we’re promoting a cut-throat creator community, but rather the opposite. We know that those who succeed on YouTube do it by simply being better at it than their fellow YouTubers. It’s why we created our unique marketing taxonomy so that — for the first time — creators finally know who their “Topic competitors” are and have the insights they need to get ahead, to rise above if you will.

Like others new to this YouTube marketing world, while we were building and managing brand channels, we too occasionally used VidStatsX to report certain stats. As time progressed, we applauded them as they added fancier graphics and more API data. We especially loved their day-by-day Subscriber data. But as a marketing company that had been in business since 1993 — and who by 2012 was already running about 75 brand channels for Touchstorm’s global clients, as well as our own Howdini channel — we were very aware of what was taking our channel optimizers so much time. We also knew how much spreadsheet-jockeying our strategists were doing trying to find winning formulas.

As we saw it then and now:
video data needs to go further than merely re-packaging basic numbers from the YouTube API and other social media sources.

From a marketing standpoint, what you need, what we need, and what our customers need is: Insight | Formulas | Community | Tools

Sample vs. Census.

In 2010 we knew we wanted to have the biggest YouTube database outside of YouTube itself. When we analyze and report data, we didn’t want it to be just a “sample” of YouTube channels, we wanted it to be a “census” of
all YouTube channels.
Sample vs. census is a critical distinction and being a census is vital to being able to make the best marketing judgments.

Enter VideoAmigo

As of this writing, we have more than 21 million channels and almost 2 billion videos — indeed, the biggest YouTube database outside of YouTube. We use a custom taxonomy that classifies the contents by producer type, by country, by language, and by what they’re talking about… we call that a Topic.

It’s dual purpose from the start to today remains clear:

Enable creators and brands to grow their YouTube channels with unbeatable data, insights, and tools. • Introduce creators and brands to one another so that they can both profit from mutually beneficial partnerships.

We launched the public-facing version of our platform in 2015 when we introduced VideoAmigo itself with powerful lists that no one else had then or has today:

You’ll find these lists to be similar to VidStatsX… but with superior insights and better-organized data. You know those day-to-day Subscriber lists we told you we loved about VidStatsX? On VideoAmigo you can have it live and auto-updating along with the dailies:

Instantly see the YouTube
Live Subscriber Count
for any channel,
updated by the second.

VideoAmigo vs. VidStatsX

The key to the success of the VideoAmigo platform is the decade of intense work that we put in that delivers analysis well beyond generic API data. VideoAmigo allows a more in-depth analysis of a YouTube channel’s accurate ranking when compared to their closest rivals.

Category Comparisons Are Key.

The key to the missing insights was an inability to compare niche channels with other channels that were (are) a part of their specific conversations. In other words, the ability to compare knitters to knitters, beers to beers, and comedians to comedians.

To create meaningful insights, somebody just needed to make YouTube feel smaller.

And so we did exactly that. We built it first for Howdini and our Touchstorm clients. And then we made it available to all creators:

You can compare yourself to only the others that matter, and we do the analysis to show you what’s normal / best in your category so you can set goals for what your rise should look like.

We do the hard analysis and answer the questions that most YouTubers have, like:

“Exactly what hour should I upload?” or;

“How often should I upload?”

VidStatsX and VideoAmigo

Side-by-Side Comparison

Nested Categories Make YouTube Feel More Manageable.

The thing is, YouTube is simply gigantic (and growing): by some calculations, 1/6th of the world’s population is on YouTube. You shouldn’t be comparing yourself to 1/6th of the population. And the 15 high-level categories that YouTube segments channels into only helps you so much… That’s why we took on the challenge to develop a category taxonomy of Topics. Which means that VideoAmigo allows a more in-depth analysis of a YouTube channel’s ranking when compared to their closest rivals.

VideoAmigo has a nested and intuitive tiered classifications system.

It starts by segmenting channels into high level Categories;

Then buckets those into broad Themes;

Goes narrower to Conversations;

And gets into hyper-specifics with precise Topics;

We’ve added Producer Types, Country, Language, and so much more.

.

Example:

What Does That Mean For YouTubers?

With VideoAmigo, a YouTube makeup artist in Korea that specializes in acne-prone skin can see how she compares to others in Korea. Or in Asia. Or others across the world that have the same focus, instead of merely comparing her performance to every channel in YouTube’s enormous “How To & Style” category. Or a Romanian-speaking reclaimed wood furniture builder can see how he compares to his rivals. (Even though, by YouTube standards — and VidStatsX’s recently shuttered lists — he’s also in that same broad “How To & Style” category.)

Save Time, Make Money.

VideoAmigo’s state-of-the-art tools simplify repetitive tasks and inspire creators. Combine that with our superior data and insights, and that means creators are more proficient and productive.

For example, these are the sections you’ll find in our Creator Tools Suite:

Dashboard

Your Home Base for the Big Picture. Simple charts summarize your standings. Alerts tell you what to fix and what to celebrate.

The Common Thread: A Passion For YouTube.

All along the way, through all of these offerings, we teach YouTubers and brands — and yes, even our competitors — how to succeed on YouTube. Above all else, what we do is designed to make you smarter about YouTube.

No Such Thing As A Free* Lunch.

But we do have free data and insights. How is VideoAmigo able to do that without ads or charging creators for all of this data and amazing insight? It’s because we have a sizable brand marketing and influencer business through Touchstorm. And we needed all of these tools for our Touchstorm clients… and that paid for the development of VideoAmigo.

*But, speaking of a free lunch… if you’re in the area, stop by our NYC HQ and we’ll show you some tips and tricks for using VideoAmigo, and we’ll buy you lunch, too. Just us let us know you’re coming at least a day in advance so we don’t eat too big a breakfast!

Rest In Peace, VidStatsX.

VidStatsX: you were our competitor for creator’s eyes and a catalyst for us to provide better data for managing YouTube channels. In a small but essential way, you inspired VideoAmigo to become the robust platform it is today.